INTRODUCTIONPaul’s foremost concern was to give God thanks for the church in Rome. Their faith was being talked about throughout the whole. He eagerly anticipated paying them a visit so that they may mutually encourage one another.

What Does This Say About God?
Paul did not plant the church in Rome; instead, it was completely a work of God.

God is a giver of the gift of faith.

God desires for us to be real with him in our prayer lives.

What Does This Say About Humanity?• We have limitations that only God can overcome. Paul, who planted many churches, was barred from planting on in Rome. Instead, God was the one who sparked the Christian movement in the world’s capital.

• We were hardwired to experience and live in community. While technology helps us overcome the proximity are a huge blessing (email, texting, social media), there is simply no substitute for proximity to loved ones.

• God has given us gifts to mutually encourage one another in the body of Christ.

What Will You Do About It?
____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

For more insight to this passage listen to One More Thing – where our teaching pastors discuss the passage in greater detail using these discussion questions.

INTRODUCTIONPaul presents himself as an Apostle by grace alone, sent to deliver a message that requires an obedience of faith from its hearers.

What Does This Say About God?

God relishes in calling the unqualified and untalented to confound the wisdom of the world (1 Cor 1:26-27).

In missions, God wants our focus and motivation primarily on the magnification of his name (God-centric missions) before a set number of conversions (human-centric missions).

In Christ, God sees past sin to his sons and daughters in order to call them holy (or saints).

What Does This Say About Humanity?

God is not interested in using people who have it all figured out. He’s looking for those who can be called out to be called out, individuals who are willing to let God destroy their plans for life so that he might replace them with plans beyond our wildest imagination.

In missions, we tend to count a mission successful only if we can measure it in conversion count. However, like Paul, we should measure success in quality over quantity.

Grace dashes our hopes without leaving us feeling hopeless. The Holy Spirit convicts us through grace to recognize our unworthiness of God’s love with the paradoxical reality that God loves us anyway as his saints.

What Will You Do About It?
____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

For more insight to this passage listen to One More Thing – where our teaching pastors discuss the passage in greater detail using these discussion questions.

INTRODUCTION
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is declared so through his resurrection. It was an event that gave him all authority and power, vindicated him from death, and installed him as the future, universal judge.

What Does This Say About God?

Christ, who has always been God, descended into human history as a man. God did not choose a man and make him his son; he chose to make his eternal, one-and-only Son a man.

The resurrection vindicated or justified Christ from the wrong verdict pronounced by the world’s courts. It proved his innocence and righteousness.

Jesus Christ, the God-Man, rules and reigns over all creation, both seen and unseen, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.

What Does This Say About Humanity?

Because Christ was descended from the flesh, it means our physical bodies are not bad but fallen. In Christ, we will not live eternity as a wispy spirit; rather, we will live as a recreated human being. After all, God created humanity with physical bodies in the Garden and called them “very good.”

Christ was declared the Son of God in his resurrection and all authority in heaven and on earth was given to him (Mt 28:18). This means Christ is king over all aspects of our lives.

What Will You Do About It?
____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

For more insight to this passage listen to One More Thing – where our teaching pastors discuss the passage in greater detail using these discussion questions.

INTRODUCTION
Paul teaches us that the gospel was not Plan B, but was a message that had been proclaimed from the very beginning. The grand story of the Bible, the Metanarrative of scripture, has been proclaiming Christ, both the Lord of and descendant from David.

What Does This Say About God?

• Paul tells us that not only did prophets declare the gospel beforehand, but those prophets belonged to God (“his prophets”). God’s sovereign hand may be seen throughout history as he brings about events for his purposes.

• God has an incredibly rich love for his people, because even before sin entered the picture God declared the gospel through marriage (Ephesians 5:32, Genesis 2:24).

• Because Christ is a descendant of David, God, in the second person of the Trinity, is not only the author of creation but became a character in it.

What Does This Say About Humanity?

• Despite our proclivity to see our selves as too far into sin for redemption, God has been promising from the beginning that the messiah, Jesus Christ, would reverse the damage of all sin.

• We may find great comfort, encouragement, and strength in God’s word because it is ultimately a message about his gospel to his creation.

What Will You Do About It?
____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

For more insight to this passage listen to One More Thing – where our teaching pastors discuss the passage in greater detail using these discussion questions.